


now you're in my head (I must've lost my mind)

by four_leaf_chloe



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys Kissing, F/M, Heteronormativity, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, James "Help I'm In Love With My Straight Best Friend" Madison, M/M, Mutual Pining, Thomas "Fake It Till You Make It" Jefferson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 16:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/four_leaf_chloe/pseuds/four_leaf_chloe
Summary: James isn't in love with Thomas.After all, there are rules. And things are always easier when he listens.





	now you're in my head (I must've lost my mind)

**Author's Note:**

> just 
> 
> *shows up* *throws angst at you* *leaves*

.

.

.

James stares at the sky. Blue. Dazzling.

Eyes flick away from the window, back to the white popcorn ceiling. _Don’t bother chasing what you’ll never have_. So he’s been told. And James listens to what he’s told.

Things are easier when he listens.

White fields of cotton stretching out over miles. A gray skyline, an empty promise.

Things are always easier when he listens.

James sits up, slowly. Yawns a little. Blinks blearily in the face of his alarm clock. He’s not scared. Thomas is—always. Looking over shoulders, walking into first period with shaking hands, scanning every doorway. But James, he’s fine.

Just another day. And James, he listens. So he’ll be fine.

It’s Thomas he’s worried about.

. 

. 

. 

The day is slow. Drags on through hours and hours of teachers’ endless droning, which really doesn’t do much more than provide an uninteresting backdrop for the constant back-and-forth shouting provided so willingly by Thomas and Alexander.

It gets old.

James sighs, tries not to stare too long at Thomas, gazes out windows and thinks. White fields of cotton, a gray skyline. How different things could’ve been.

 _If only you would_ **_listen_** _._

The sound of a ruler hitting the desk startles James out of his reverie and causes his heart to jump into his throat, and Thomas visibly flinches back. No one notices, of course. No one ever notices unless they’re looking, and no one is ever willing to look.

“Mr. Jefferson,” the teacher says sharply, voice taut, stretched thin, a quivering bowstring ready to snap. James knows the tone, has grown up with this tone. He listens.

“And Mr. Hamilton, too,” the teacher adds, almost as an afterthought. “You _both_ need to quiet down. You are supposed to be working _silently_.” Her gaze is razor-edged over her wire-framed glasses, and James sees Thomas nod rapidly.

With that, she seems satisfied, and she turns to walk back to her desk, ruler in hand.

Doesn’t notice the way Thomas’ hands are shaking.

Doesn’t notice the bruise peeking out over his collar.

Of course not. No one ever notices unless they’re looking, and no one is ever willing to look. James shouldn’t be surprised.

And he isn’t.

. 

. 

. 

Rules:

James is straight. It stops there.

Thomas is James’ friend. It stops there.

They are rules that have never been spoken. They do not need to be. It’s understood, in the Madison family, that boys and boys are just friends, that girls and girls are just friends, that this is the way it’s suppposed to be, the right way, and it is not questioned.

 _None of that liberal bullshit in_ **_my_ ** _house._

James picked it up pretty quickly, back when he was younger, nursing his first crush—another little boy in the fourth grade, brash and bright and wildly talkative. You could say he has a type.

He kept quiet at first, never spoke up about the little blossoming crush, kept those kinds of things to himself. Luckily for him, not that he knew it yet. He noticed, after the first few playdates, the way his mother’s tone took on a subtle sharper edge whenever James’ hand lingered too long on the other boy’s, and the pieces clicked.

In the years since, he’s noticed more than just that.

White fields of cotton stretching out over miles. A gray skyline, an empty promise.

Things are easier when he listens.

. 

. 

. 

James stares at the piece of paper in front of him.

He knows he’s in love. He’s known for a long time now. Long before the white fields of cotton and the cloudy gray skyline, long before that promise of something better faded into another form of hell.

It was just friendship, at first—it really was. And then that friendship entered a gray area James had never quite ventured into before, slipped into something else, melted into something deep and _aching_ beneath his breast.

There was a word for it. Alexander Hamilton, loud and brash and bright and beautiful, with a sunny smile James rarely saw—Alexander Hamilton, once a little fourth-grader who made James’ palms sweaty just by being near—Alexander Hamilton surely knew the word, made a point of educating _certain people_ on the ins and outs of the LGBT community daily.

A quick google search using private browsing on a school computer the other day turned it up easily. Demiromantic. Sure, okay, something like that. It sounds right. James isn’t sure he really cares.

He does know that he loves Thomas, though. He’s loved him as a friend for years and years, and then—he isn’t sure when, but there was a shift, a change so subtle even he almost missed it.

Contentment with what is has become an aching loss for what could almost be.

And that’s what brings him here, to this, staring at a paper in front of him with two lists printed in neat, consistent handwriting. Pros and cons. Reasons why, and reasons why not.

James stares at the paper and chews on his lower lip.

There’s no question about it, not really.

Coming out means possibly being disowned, means permanent estrangement, means being forever cut off. Coming out makes any shot at being able to pay for a college so much harder.

Or, well, worse.

Yeah. It could be a lot worse. It probably would be.

It could mean bruises like Thomas’. It could mean a muddy gray area between discipline and abuse.

If he’s perfectly honest with himself, if he’s real, unflinching, he knows it could get even worse than that. He’s heard about the camps. Everyone’s heard about the camps.

James tears into the paper with a vengeance, ripping it to shreds, until it’s unrecognizable. He then proceeds to flush it. Because, well, better safe than sorry.

There are rules in the Madison family. And things are always easier when he listens.

. 

. 

. 

Summer before his freshman year. James had known Thomas forever, and there was just _something_ about him that had always drawn James to the taller, curly-haired boy. They’d been fast friends, even though they didn’t live near one another. The friendship of the Jeffersons and the Madisons went back for generations, so even though Thomas had been born and raised in a more suburban part of Virginia, far from the stretches of farmland James knew so well, they got to see each other often enough.

Summer before his freshman year, when James was still coming to terms with the way his feelings for Thomas were… _shifting_ , his parents uprooted the lives they’d had in rural southern Virginia and moved James and his little siblings north, near DC.

James remembers staring out the back window at the disappearing fields of cotton. Remembers the dismal gray skyline.

They told him things would be better. _You’ll be closer to Thomas. You can start over, try and make some friends_.

Friendship didn’t come so easily to the short, pudgy, quiet, sickly new kid, but he was at least looking forward to seeing Thomas more often. To sharing classes, sleeping over, just being _near_ him.

James allowed himself to hope. He really should’ve known better.

He knows better now.

. 

. 

. 

The first time Thomas used the word “gay” as an insult, it was a jarring shock. James had to stop himself from visibly recoiling.

The first time Thomas talked about the relationship between Hamilton and Laurens in that disgusted tone, James saw it coming a mile away. Steeled himself. It still stung to hear it.

James loves Thomas, wants him more than anything.

Things were supposed to be better here.

. 

. 

. 

It hurts to look at James. To watch the way he smiles, softly, secretly. To listen to his voice—smooth and quiet, yet sure.

Thomas’ rules:

He can’t be in love. Not with James.

He has to be straight. It stops there.

He does everything right, has mastered the routine of any straight guy, says all the right things to make them believe he’s not lying. He still looks at James sometimes and feels _something_ in his stomach, and then suddenly the bruises feel so much more conspicuous and he’s overwhelmed with guilt and revulsion, but—

He’s straight. He asked Martha out yesterday, and she said yes.

That stuff—what he feels for James—that’s different, that’s _wrong_.

He looks at Martha on their first real date, sees something in her eyes, knows that she meant it when she said yes. He wishes he felt something. He hopes to god he eventually will.

. 

. 

. 

It’s a cold and rainy night in April when James kisses Thomas for the first time.

Martha dumped Thomas ages ago. Thomas has a cut on his face that he’s already explained away a hundred times. They have both stopped caring what anyone says anymore. When James grabs Thomas’ collar and pulls him down, there is no objection.

Whatever happens, this has to be right.

Thomas’ lips gentle on James’ and Thomas’ arms around James’ waist and the way Thomas sighs when they pull back, like that right there was all he ever needed—

James won’t believe that it’s anything else _but_ right.

They stand in silence in the rain for long moments.

“This—this isn’t going to work,” Thomas finally says, breaking the quiet, his voice pained, aching. Aching the way James has ached for years.

“It’ll have to,” James contradicts, shaking his head. “You’re too important, Thomas. I’ve wanted this for too long. I’m not losing it now. We’ll make it work.”

Thomas sighs again, shakier.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

“Kiss me again,” James demands.

Thomas’ lips quirk up into a smile, the barest hint of hope that has James believing this really might not all go down in flames. That sometimes, the good things get to last.

“I can do that,” he says. 

. 

. 

. 

**Author's Note:**

> okay so jeffmads is My Shit but angst is also My Shit, and the two often coincide... don't be surprised if this happens more often in the future, is all i'm sayin 
> 
> I love feedback!! I'd also love if you read my other work, if you haven't already!! Love you guys <3


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